With tech giants like Ericsson, Nokia, Samsung and Qualcomm as partners, Zuckerberg's newly formed Internet.org consortium looks to have the corporate muscle to achieve such a monumental vision.

But the specifics, at least for the moment, are fuzzy. Zuckerberg's 10-page statement talks of three broad objectives: making apps and other software more data-efficient; devising a way to make building access to the internet a profitable enterprise in its own right; and at the same time making online access affordable for all – which effectively means "free".